


border lines

by jonphaedrus



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 22:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes, zelgius dreams about other ways things could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	border lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rethira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/gifts).
  * Inspired by [keep the weapons down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/986336) by [Rethira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira). 



> i tried to write this like rethi's piece but i did not succeed. also a reminder that i have not actually played these games, i am going on limited knowledge, so i'm sorry for weirdness.

sometimes, zelgius dreams about other ways things could be. 

he dreams about lehran like he must have appeared when he was too young yet for counting, with his long dark hair and high cheekbones, before his beautiful eyes were left with haunting fear and age-old sadness

he dreams of the wings that once carried him through the sky. burned, broken, shattered shells on his back.

 

 

 

every time he goes to battle, he dies a thousand times in his dreams. for every defeated foe that zelgius breaks, for every sword that the black knight shatters, there's another death he dreams. 

he always wakes. always. if he's alone in the forests, he wakes. if he's in disguise, he wakes, panting until he claws what remaining armour he has on off and heaves dry on the ground.

he wakes in bed with sephiran, the sage restless in sleep as he often is, his dark hair scattered around his face and head, knotting as he rolls in sleep. his wings, stunted and small and broken as they are, lay limply against the bedspread.

he does not wake until zelgius gathers his slim form up into his arms, and sephiran makes noises that are not words, cooing calls of his aged soul, and pulls zelgius down until he's collapsed against his breast. 

he sleeps, feathers touching his face, fingers stroking his hair, heavy steady breath holding him down

 

 

 

 

when sephiran recalls him every time, he is more tired. he collapses at sephiran's feet, and when he drops the helmet that he wears, sephiran smoothes his sweat-mat hair from his face and leans over all grace to kiss the top of his head.

"my general," sephiran says, and zelgius would die a thousand deaths if he could fall into his arms one more time. 

 

 

 

he dreams, sometimes, that he died when ike stood before him, ragnell blazing in his hands. he dreams that the sword cleaved between the chinks in his armour, drove the point home.

he dreams of sephiran holding his broken body, he dreams of the man's soft, supple voice singing a galdr of mourning.

he cries when he awakes

 

 

 

he dreams that sephiran died, a glassy-eyed creature left scattered and boneless on the floor. his sage, an empty broken shell. he dreams of cold body and half-open mouth and a bloody wound deep all the way through, left from a sword the twin to zelgius' own 

in these dreams, when ike asks him to help them destroy the goddess, zelgius turns his sword in reverse. 

he lets alondite punch through his armour, and dies leaving sephiran's white robes stained carmine red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

he keeps his weapons down. sephiran is not healthy, after. the forest cannot heal him entirely as quickly as he would like, the galdr that stir in his body tire him daily. he is a wounded, weak man, now. 

he watches zelgius cut wood. watches his arms bulge with muscles, keeps his hand on the old, wrecked injury in his stomach that not micaiah, not the forest, not the goddess could heal all the way. 

he sings. his voice is sore and rough with disuse, but when zelgius tires of the wood, he picks lehran up, and the older man smiles and kisses him, bittersweet, too-light in his arms.

 

 

 

he dreams of how they might have been, if zelgius had met him a thousand years before. of how they could both have lived or died.

in a bad winter where a local village is in drastic need for metal to shore up a falling hospital, zelgius builds and banks a fire and slowly melts his old armour into solid blocks. it's not iron, but it's just as good for what they need.

with every piece that he feeds into the fire, with every piece of the black knight that slips away, he feels lighter. he feels emptier.

lehran sets a hand on his shoulder, trails fine fingers through his hair. he says nothing.

 

 

when ike dies, zelgius melts down the rest of his armour. he uses it to build an addition to lehran's cabin.

it does not feel like his own cabin.

he thinks of how old he is, and puts up another wall.

 

 

 

he wishes it was before the war, again. when he was young. zelgius dreams of going over again—an antebellum. the autumn of his life tires him. the summer has begun to pass.

 

 

 

he starts to feel aches in his bones in the winter. armistice has slowed him—or perhaps time has. he Regrets. he Mourns. 

sephiran's hands are warm on his cheeks, and zelgius does not look at himself in the water, in the mirror, for he knows he has begun to grow old.

his sage has not changed, but for the anguish in his eyes, now deeper and darker than ever before. 

lehran hires a boy to chop the wood, and zelgius dreams of dying on his sword.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

zelgius dies. he dies long after he should have, aged beyond reckoning, soft galdr sung to him while he slept lengthening his days, but not eternally. lehran holds his body, crying long slow tears, and sings a galdr of mourning.

the herons of the forest join, even if they know not why. they can't find words, he speaks too old, but the tune is as deep as their bones.

 

 

 

he breaks alondite.

 

 

 

 

he buries zelgius with his hands.


End file.
